CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

I am pretty sure I have more Christmases behind me than ahead of me. Looking back none of them seem all that special, but at the time- each one was the best Christmas ever!

I came from a lower middle class family. I was the fifth of six kids. Both my parents worked and my dad took a midnight shift at the post office in addition to his regular job during the Christmas season a few years. Our tree was always live and we put tinsel, not garland, on it. The lights were multi colored, larger bulbs that I haven’t seen in any stores for well over 30 years. Dad often had to trim the tree to get it to fit in our living room and when he did he would make a wreath out of the scraps, tie a big red bow on it and hang it on the front of our brick ranch with a spotlight shining on it. The years he didn’t get enough scraps off the tree he would cut an eighteen inch Nativity Scene out of cardboard and put that in front of the spotlight to make a Nativity Scene shadow on the front of the house. He was creative and I was always proud of the way our house looked. Even though I liked dad’s creative touch I bugged him to get one of those big light up Santa’s that were so popular in the 60’s and 70’s. He’d give a patented “DAD” look and say, “NO.”

Picking up the tree was always a good time for me. The adventure would start with dad getting home early on a Friday night, if he couldn’t get off early we’d go Saturday morning. We would head out to the Christmas Tree lot and look for “Just the right tree.” It was not unlike the scene from “A CHRISTMAS STORY.” My mom, dad and 5 or 6 kids would pile out of out of our 1954 Chevy, later a 1959 Mercury Montery, and my childhood trips ended with a cypress green 1965 Chevy Biscayne station wagon. My dad would spend a long time dragging or carrying kids through the lot. He’d pick up a tree, size it up, put it back. He would talk to the man in charge. Haggle over the price. Sometimes we’d go to two or three lots, it was very important to get just the right tree. Some years mom would stay home with a kid or two. I remember it was always cold, and usually snowy, but it was always fun and we would often get hot chocolate when we got home-if it wasn’t too late and we had behaved.

Setting up the tree was exciting, for me. We would unravel the strands of lights, plug them into a wall outlet on one side of the living room and bring the strand down the hallway. My dad assigned my little sister and me to check for burnt out bulbs and report back to him. This was a very important job for us, and kept us away from the boxes of glass ornaments and other breakables. Each kid, who was interested, was allowed to put ornaments on the tree as long as we were careful and didn’t fight. I was, and still am, 7 years younger than my oldest brother so when I was getting to an age where I was allowed to do things he was getting to an age where he didn’t want to do things. Ahhhh, big families! The tinsel was put on ever so carefully, some had to go on the inner parts of the branches or it didn’t look right. You couldn’t be too rough with it or you would break it, but you could put some on your little sister’s head when nobody was watching- once, maybe twice, depending on her reaction.

Some of the Christmases I’ve heard a lot about are BM (Before Me) Christmases. The first was my oldest brother Pete’s second Christmas. My parents broke the budget trying to buy him every toy, rattle and whatever they thought he might like. As the legend goes, he opened the first present with parental help and didn’t really react. The second present same thing. I don’t know how many presents he got, but from what I heard he wasn’t making a lot of “Kodak Moments” for my parents. My mom and dad started opening their own presents (With much better reactions I hope) when they were distracted by a loud noise in the kitchen. Pete had crawled in there, opened the cabinet, and started playing with the pots and pans! On another Christmas a few years later my brother Pete and, next in line, Pat were big enough to talk, and were still believers. My parents had learned their lesson, they thought, and tried to get at least one fantastic gift for each kid every Christmas.

Pete and Pat opened their presents and seemed to be happy. My parents packed the car up and headed to Chicago to a party with my dad’s family. Dad was much younger than his siblings so Pete, Pat and probably the next in line, Paul, were the youngest kids there and got a lot of attention. They were met at the door with people wanting to help with the kids and everyone was asking, “Was Santa good to you? What did you get?” Pete and Pat answered that question several times, each time with the same answer. “An itty bitty dump truck and an itty bitty fire engine.” Thank God my parents got the knack of gift buying by the time I arrived.

Some of the presents I remember were a light up airplane with removeable wings, a whole set of several small army men, a Daisy B-B Gun (And no, I didn’t shoot my eye out), a garage with matchbox cars and my freshman year in high school a weight bench that I really wanted, but didn’t think I’d get. Despite the stories above, my parents always made Christmas a beautiful time. For me, it was The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I used to like to save one or two purchases for Christmas Eve, call me crazy but, I liked the hustle and tense feeling in the air of it’s now or never. When I was still in high school my godmother was collecting elephant figurines and had a large collection of very expensive and beautiful samples. I, on a high schoolers budget, thought this was fantastic because now I had something I could buy her every year. This practice ended after only two years when she pulled me aside and said, “Philip, the gesture is very nice but the elephants you buy never make it onto my collection shelf.” I went back to buying her perfume she never used.

Something I looked forward to every Christmas was caroling. When I was in grade school a group of my friends and I went door to door in the neighborhood caroling to raise money for a charity. I believe to this day that every penny donated was given to us as a bribe to stop singing, but it was fun. We had neighbors who had a large family with a tradition of caroling. They came to our house every Christmas Eve for more than 10 years, probably close to 15. They did sing well and always had a great time. It was enjoyable to listen to them, they really helped make Christmas, Christmas.

Another big part of Christmas is the movies. I love the old versions of “MIRACLE ON 34Tth STREET” and “A CHRISTMAS CAROL” I also like “A CHRISTMAS STORY.” My all time favorite is “IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE” with Jimmy Stewart. My son Sean took me to a dinner theatre to see it on the big screen a few years ago and Zu Zu gave a little talk before it started. She said Jimmy Stewart was wonderful to her and Uncle Billy saved a scene (After Harry’s wedding) when stage hands dropped some props. Uncle Billy immediately yelled, “I’m ok, I’m ok” it was unscripted but made it one of the best scenes in the movie. 

Raising our family my wife and I tried to, and I think succeeded, make Christmas wonderful for our kids. I was a police officer and generally had to work at least Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and sometimes both. It was a challenge to make it work. I remember one year I was assigned the dayshift on Christmas and had Christmas Eve off. We loaded the kids in the car for the vigil mass at 5:00 and I said I had to run in the house for something. Eileen and I had put all of the presents in a room near the tree and I grabbed them all, put them under the tree, turned the tree on and ran back to the car. We went to mass and went to Denny’s for dinner (Which was a treat for the kids, and us) and then came home to be “surprised” that Santa had come early. 

On our first Christmas together my daughter Jaime wanted a Cabbage Patch Doll. We looked everywhere but couldn’t find one. Eileen was a very good shopper and had a network of friends who often helped find things that couldn’t be found, but we struck out on that doll. We got her a pretty good looking knock off. On Christmas morning she opened it, smiled and said. “I love it, I know it’s not a Cabbage Patch Doll, but I love it anyway.” What a sweetheart! At one point we lived in a house not far from high towers with single red lights on the top as a warning to low flying aircraft. My third oldest looked out the window and saw that light one Christmas Eve. He ran downstairs yelling, “I see Rudolph, I see Rudolph.” We said, “You better get to sleep then.” and brought him back to bed. I think he believed longer than he would have because of that.

Eileen did most of the Christmas shopping. I always wanted to be a part of that but was working overtime or sleeping after a midnight shift when she would go. I remember our first Christmas together we did not have much money to decorate, but we did end up at Marshall Fields (A nice department store in the Chicago area at the time). They had a bargain basement and we bought an Angel of our tree there, that angel lasted about 30 years.  

Eileen went to one of the first “Black Friday” sales with her mother and sister and told me I had to come and experience it the next year. We got up at about 4am to get to a store with a fantastic sale on something or other. We waited in a long line and then fought our way through the crowd as soon as the doors opened. We were able to get one of the last something or others on the shelf. It was an experience I’m glad I had, but never participated in it again.

This year I’m looking forward to going to my daughter’s house. My household has been tasked with bringing the wine and I think I’ll bring a little extra. It might help me to sleep on the couch after dinner- another Christmas tradition started by my father!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!